


All stripped down

by killerweasel



Series: All stripped down [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Leverage
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 00:21:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2328464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killerweasel/pseuds/killerweasel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot discovers nothing is simple when it comes to vampires, lawyers, and matters of the heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All stripped down

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in 2009 and am posting the series as is. There aren't any sequels. This is it.

Title: All stripped down  
Fandom: Leverage/Buffy  
Characters: Eliot Spencer, Spike  
Word Count: 1,199  
Rating: R  
Warnings: mentions of torture, abuse  
AN: AU set preseries to _Leverage_ and after _Buffy's Wild at Heart_

It was three days before he would even look at me while answering one of my questions. They were one word answer and there was always a hint of fear, almost as if he was afraid of saying the wrong thing. I found myself treating him the same way I did a skittish horse, with a soft tone and a whole lot of patience. While I didn’t know the full extent of what he’d been through, what I’d seen with my own eyes had been enough to turn my stomach.

The bed shook slightly, but I didn’t open my eyes. He’d done this every night since I’d taken him from that damn place and it didn’t bother me at all. I waited until his back was pressed tightly against my chest before I gently curled my arm around his thin frame. If I moved my hand I’d be able to feel every single one of his ribs under my fingertips. Even with the food I had been providing him on a daily basis, it would still be quite some time before he looked halfway normal again.

I didn’t have a set destination in mind. The woman who made contact with me in the first place said she’d find us when the time was right. Woman. I guess the proper word would be vampire. From what I could understand, she was the one who created the guy who was currently so close to me that he could be a second skin. She hadn’t been the easiest person to interpret, speaking in riddles and puzzles which probably made a whole lot more sense to her than they did to me. Basically it boiled down to her son/lover/partner/companion/friend/caregiver/whatever the hell else he was being held prisoner by a military group so secret no one would ever admit it existed. And that’s what made it so damn dangerous, which is exactly why I took the job in the first place.

He was safe now. Safe. Somehow I doubted he’d see it that way. As I lay there in the darkness, my mind wandered back to a damp, dark, cold cell in what used to be a palace. I thought about bleeding fingertips, wounds that were never given the chance to properly heal, bruises on the soles of someone’s feet that hurt so damn bad that they wanted to cut them off just to make the pain stop, dislocated shoulders, cuts, scraps, burns, broken bones, and a half dozen other things that only crept in from the shadows in dreams. Didn’t matter how hard you trained, how hard you pushed yourself to be faster, stronger, and better than you were before it happened because all it took was one noise or one smell and you were right back there again. It had been a long time since I’d frozen like that, but that place, that underground hell, did the trick faster than I could blink.

The whimpering sound from the sleeping figure in my arms finally made me open my eyes. This was something I’d also gotten used to. Whimpers came first, followed by a half-strangled moan, which lead to a hellish scream I couldn’t even properly describe even if someone had a gun to my head. He would wake up, gasping for breath he didn’t need, looking around wildly to see if he was still there, see if his tormentors were waiting for him in the darkness, and shaking so hard I could hear his teeth rattle. And I would work on calming him back down again.

He had absolutely no reason to trust me. I knew what that thing in his head did, knew what he wasn’t able to do, and knew what I could do to him. The soldiers had made sure to show me all their little tricks and games while I quietly seethed and debated on seeing if I could kill them all with my bare hands. I’d managed to restrain myself though. We never would have got out of there if I hadn’t. I think the thing which had angered me the most was the fact that they’d not only stripped him of anything that made him human, but they had taken away his name and replaced it with a number.

I shuddered as he started to make the half-strangled sound. Even when I prepared myself, the scream afterwards always shook me to my very core. I made sure to pick motels where the odds were pretty damn good that no one would bother calling the cops. When he screamed, I just held onto him and waited for it to stop. Sometimes it seemed like he was never going to stop. Those were the times I worried about his sanity, how he was going to cope with what had happened, and how the woman would take care of him when she needed him to take care of her.

The noise tapered off to harsh panting and I eased us into a sitting position while never loosening the grip I had on his frame. I whispered reassurances, told him he was safe, and promised it would get better over time. I wondered if he believed me. “You’re freezing.” That was a stupid thing for me to say since he was always colder than normal. “How does a hot shower followed by more of the blood from the fridge sound?”

At first I didn’t think he was going to answer me. He was shaking like a leaf in a strong breeze and I half-expected his bones to come popping out through his skin if it got any worse. Then he cleared his throat. “Okay.”

His name was a mystery to me. The woman had never mentioned it in her ramblings and the military hadn’t given a shit. When I’d asked him, he’d shrunk away from me like a dog expecting to get beaten and I didn’t bring it up again. I carefully swiped the cloth over his skin, making sure to avoid the larger of the bruises. They were finally starting to fade and the deepest of the wounds were beginning to heal.

“Eliot?” His voice startled me and I dropped the cloth. As I bent down to grab it, he reached out with a shaky hand to trace a set of thin scars along my hip. “Who did that?”

That was probably the longest thing I’d heard him say and for a moment I just stood there with the cloth in my hand like an idiot. Then I cleared my throat. “No one knew his real name. They called him Cobra. He liked to use knives.” I shivered. “Even though he’s dead, sometimes I can still hear his voice in my nightmares.”

“It’s all jumbled in my head. I can remember bits and pieces, sights and sounds, scents...” He turned and rested his forehead against the tiles. “Spike.”

“What?” I frowned in confusion.

“My name is Spike.” He gave me a tiny smile. “I wasn’t ready before.”

The water was starting to get cold and I turned it off. “Come on, Spike. We’ll get dried off and go see about that blood. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds like a plan.”


End file.
